


A Better Idea

by helvel



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Back Pain, Established Relationship, First Time Bottoming, Light Dom/sub, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:55:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27508723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helvel/pseuds/helvel
Summary: Caught in a blizzard, John and Arthur find a way to pass the time.
Relationships: John Marston/Arthur Morgan
Comments: 11
Kudos: 86





	A Better Idea

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends! This is in the same storyline as Real, though you don’t need to read that one to know what’s going on here. Both are just Morston smut with a light dom/sub dynamic :)

They’re miles from town when the storm sets in, chilled breeze picking up into blustering wind until the icy claws and teeth of the blizzard sink bone-deep with every gust. Piling snow swirls over the road. Soon the horses struggle with every step. They can barely keep sight of each other through the white-out, so when they find a shallow cave in the mountainside, they decide to wait out the storm.

Boadicea’s tail swishes as wind howls over the cave’s entrance. Arthur makes soft soothing sounds to calm her. No more than a cool breeze gusts into the cave, and Bo and Missy will be quite comfortable wrapped up in their blankets. There’s just enough space left to set up a tent. In agreement that no lawman in his right mind is after them in weather like this, Arthur and John forgo the watch shift and both duck in through the tent flap.

It warms up quick with two bodies in a one-man tent and the lantern throwing off heat. All things considered, there’s worse ways to wait out a blizzard. They got food, whiskey, a good score in hand. As John takes a pull on the whiskey, head tipped back to bare the long, elegant line of his neck, Arthur’s got to admit that the company ain’t too bad either.

John wipes his lips with the back of his hand. “We ought to take off our clothes,” he says, “y’know, share body heat.”

Arthur lifts an eyebrow. They’re not at any risk of freezing. The tent is so warm, he even had to take off his heavy winter coat. John is like an open book, though, and Arthur knows that glint in his eyes all too well. “Just say what you mean, Marston.”

“Alright - we ought to take off our clothes.”

A cocky smile brightens his face, excessively flirtatious. Arthur might roll his eyes if it wasn’t so charming.

“S’pose we got to pass the time somehow.” Arthur chuckles, then grunts as it sends a painful jolt down his spine. “Shit, I ain’t really up to it though. That feller who jumped us from the wagon knocked something sideways in me. Feels like I got rammed by a bull.” Only a few years back he could have walked off the blow like it was nothing, the same way John did, but it aches something fierce on the wrong side of thirty.

“You going to be alright?” John asks, pressing the whiskey bottle into Arthur’s hand. Arthur waves it away.

“O’course, I’ll be fine. There’s a big ol’ rock under our tent that’s digging into just the right place,” he says, not all sarcasm. After riding for hours, stretching out his back on the hard ground helps the aching muscles somewhat. He folds his hands over his stomach and nods to John. “You go on ahead though.”

“Go on and do what?”

Arthur grins. “Take off your clothes. I’ll watch.”

John is already working at the buttons of his shirt, pulling it open to display a sliver of bare chest. “You want a show?”

“Told you to do it, didn’t I? Get moving.”

Predictable as always, the gruff tone gets John into action. It shouldn’t be so attractive with the contortionism John has to do to undress in the small tent, but John has a magnetism about him that Arthur can’t look away from, hypnotized by his pendulum hips even as John half-wriggles out of his union suit.

“Think you were getting paid for it, the way you show off like that,” Arthur tells him. John pushes himself to his knees at Arthur’s side, bare skin washed golden in the lantern light. “… I’ll admit you are a pretty sight, though.”

John’s eyes shine with anticipation. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Arthur lifts a hand to trace the divot of his narrow hips. It doesn’t feel right to be allowed to touch something so lovely, especially when Arthur himself is laid out like an aching old man. What John sees in him, he’ll never known. John shifts himself closer into Arthur’s touch, eyes moving down to the front of his jeans. His tongue darts out over his lips, and Arthur smirks.

“ _Real_ subtle,” Arthur says.

“I could suck you,” John blurts, the same way he always does with his desires.

“Thought you were putting on a show for me.”

“Ain’t doing it for free no more.” John sits back on his heels, cockstand making the disinterest unconvincing.

“You best quit that teasing, boy.”

“Or _what?_ ”

Defiance shines in his eyes, all but begging to be knocked down a notch. Hell, Arthur’s got plenty of time to lay around like an invalid with the storm continuing to howl outside. He catches John by the arm and yanks him close, fighting the jolt of pain as his back spasms.

“Or you- you ain’t going to like what happens.”

It doesn’t sound half as mean as he intends, grit out through teeth clenched in pain. John swears and pushes Arthur back down.

“The Hell you doing? Stay down, you stubborn bastard!”

Arthur groans, not sure who he’s frustrated with. “Just- just got to be real gentle about it.” He tries once more, and John pushes him back down again, swinging a leg over his hips to keep him there.

“Stubborn bastard,” John repeats. He grabs the whiskey bottle, and Arthur concedes to take a drink, willing it to dull the ache a little. The sight of John’s naked body straddling him is another pleasant distraction. Settling a hand on John’s hip, he manages a smile that isn’t too much like a grimace.

“I’m alright. Go on, Marston. Put on that show for me.”

“I got a better idea.”

John sits back, seating himself over the front of Arthur’s jeans and rolling his hips deliberately.

“About time we tried it this way round, ain’t it?”

Arthur can’t let himself be tempted by it, he just can’t.

“You ain’t ever done that before,” he says, “and I ain’t exactly, uh, easy to take.”

John shrugs. “We got time.”

They do. The wind howls over the cave’s entrance again, with no sign of the storm letting up anytime soon.

“If we do… you got to listen to what I tell you, alright? None of this trying to rush.”

“Yeah, yeah,” John agrees as he reaches for his satchel. He finds the jar of Vaseline and sits back, uncorking it to dip two fingers in. With ease that seems entirely too practiced, he reaches behind himself, and his jaw goes slack as his arm flexes.

Arthur’s curiosity is piqued. He knows that those long fingers feel good, knows they hit just the right place, but this isn’t the angle John is used to doing it from.

“You done this to yourself before?” he asks.

John exhales with a sound of agreement.

“Was after, after that first time you let me get my fingers inside of you. You remember that?” John groans, at the sensation or the memory. “Couldn’t stop thinking about it… and you was being a right asshole not letting me do it again. So I tried, _ah,_ tried doing it to myself. Imagining it was you I had my fingers inside of… Shit, I shot off in about a minute flat the first time I tried it.”

His arm strains as he works deeper into himself. Arthur desperately wishes he had a better vantage point on it, but John pushes him back down when he so much as lifts his head.

“Been doing it ever since, even after you let me do it it again. Think that made it worse… Even started imagining it was you inside me. Got me thinking that maybe, maybe I wanted to try it, for real…”

Arthur swallows. “I’m a bit bigger than a couple of fingers.” His hand moves from John’s hip, sliding between John’s thighs to touch where John works slippery fingers in and out of himself. He pulls out, and Arthur’s finger slides in with such ease that his head damn near explodes from the sensation.

“I’m ready,” John says. Arthur nods dumbly, not capable of much else. He lets John work open his pant laces, draw him out, slather more of the Vaseline over him. Then John lines himself up and sinks down in one motion.

“Dammit, Marston, told you- told you to take it slow,” Arthur grits out, “Christ, you ain’t learned a thing, have you!”

John takes in a sharp breath. “I’m okay.”

Arthur grabs him by the hips to still him. Then John starts rocking his hips and all thoughts fly out of Arthur’s head again.

“Christ, that’s huge.” John lets out a groan, though it’s now more pleasure than pain. “Was right about it feeling good, though.”

“Smartass,” is all Arthur can manage. He feels like a teenager with how close he is already. John is too good at this, really is too good at everything. His head tips back with a sharp grin that Arthur wants to fuck right off his face.

Fighting the protests of his aching back, Arthur digs in his heels and thrusts up to do just that.

* * *

“He’s just in here,” Arthur hears from outside the cave.

Hosea’s voice follows. “So this is where you boys waited out that storm. Not too bad of a place to take shelter.” The tent flaps open and Hosea ducks in. He sighs at what he finds inside. “Ain’t you a sorry sight.”

Arthur knows how miserable he must look. Laid out on the bedroll, in the same spot John left him in. His back aches at the thought of moving. Even breathing hurts.

Hosea kneels at his side. “Can you sit up?”

“Just about.”

He grunts and huffs like a bull as Hosea eases him upright, the muscles of his back screaming in protest the whole time. John stands in the tent entrance all but wringing his hands together. It’s the closest to guilty that Arthur has ever seen him look.

“See, I’m fine,” Arthur says through gritted teeth once he’s sitting up, “didn’t need Marston running off to get help.”

John’s guilty looks turns to a scowl. “What else was I supposed to do with you laid out like a log?”

“Would have been fine in a few days.”

“That’s enough now. Let’s get a look at you.”

The pain spikes as Arthur eases out of his shirt and the top half of his unders, radiating out over his shoulders and neck like fire. He grunts as Hosea pokes at his spine - how does the old man always find the most tender parts to jab at? With a sigh, Hosea takes a bottle from his back and uncorks it. A foul stink fills the air as he rubs the ointment onto Arthur’s back.

“Let that sink in, should help the pain a bit. Then we’ll get you back to camp and I’ll set you right.” By his easy attitude, Arthur is less worried that there’s any permanent damage. Seems likeHosea will be able to set him right again. The old man sits back on heels and looks between them. “So it was a guard playing hero who jumped the both of you and put old Arthur in this state.”

John nods. “And then he, uh, got worse. Somehow.”

“Uh huh. He got worse,” Hosea repeats, “ _somehow._ ”

Arthur glares at John as Hosea tucks away the ointment bottle. Trust Marston to put his dumbass foot in his mouth. “Y’know, sleeping on the hard ground… all tensed up from the cold…” he offers.

Hosea smiles to himself. “Suppose I should stop giving you a hard time about it. I’m sure it must have been worse than it sounds,” he says, one eyebrow raised, “since it looks like John is walking funny from it, too.”

Arthur disguises the noise he makes as a cough. It hurts a little less with the ointment setting in.

**Author's Note:**

> Can anyone confirm if this is real camp dialogue - at Horseshoe Overlook, Hosea asks Arthur how his back is doing after Hosea cracked it for him, and Arthur says it’s just fine? Maybe I imagined it but either way chiropractor Hosea has been living in my brain rent free ever since.
> 
> Thanks for reading! :)


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